Dawn Renee

Dawn Renee

Dawn’s earlier work tended to focus on surface and texture, with the constituent forms working within the constraints of shallower dimensions. After learning the technique of “naked raku” from Wally Asselberghs, she found herself thinking about forms in greater dimensions: in curves and swells that rise break from the surface while articulating the flow of the larger whole. Through a great deal of trial and error she adapted the glazing recipes she learned from Asselberghs to use locally available ingredients, and developed her own technique for integrating naked raku with traditional raku, becoming one of perhaps a dozen artists in the world currently using both techniques simultaneously in individual pieces. The resultant play of absorption and refraction—of warm bare surfaces curling against and through shimmers of light and color—give her sculptures a quality that is at once grounded and atmospheric. Though beautiful even in stasis, her work cannot be fully appreciated until you have seen it displayed where the lighting shifts over time.